Friday, December 23, 2011

A new review ye bastards ye....

This little review came up in local Brisbane mag Timeoff just this week...

Here it be:

"The Scrapes sound a tiresome proposition on paper. An instrumental duo devoted to droning soundscapes of violin and guitar noise, the Brisbane pair have sounded like an idea too obvious to yield any results of genuine interest. Their exceptional 2010 debut Electric Mourning Blues, however, demonstrated the folly of such thinking - and Kali Yuga Sunrise continues along a similar vein of confounded expectations.

What's the difference? It's hard to say. The Scrapes music sounds somewhat how you would expect it to - long, almost stationary expanses of distorted textures - but there's a sense of specificity which elevates their soundscapes above simple jamming and self-indulgence. Where Electric Mourning Blues occasionally resembled a number of variations on a theme, Kali Yuga Sunrise is a comprehensive and evolutionary piece of work. The opening title track is a gnarled, crooked finger of noise wrapped around some faint, fleeting whisper of traditional folk music. The Age of Vice's swirling violin and almost imperceptible percussive undercurrent conjures up a melted, deconstructed vision of Morricone's spaghetti western scores. Intertwining ominous guitar with looped found sounds, See You In The Underworld feels like Tom Waits meets latter-era Neurosis.

What really distinguishes Kali Yuga Sunrise, however, is its sense of locale. It's a commendably ambitious and undeniably well-crafted listen but what will stick with a listener is the pair's uniquely cinematic and unpretentious vision of Australiana. There's something about the massive stretches of sound and raw, minimal instrumentation that ensures Kali Yuga Sunrise resonates with the Australian psyche in a way few records do."

#### Matt O'Neill

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